Stargazer's Worldhttps://stargazersworld.com
A Roleplaying Games blogThu, 21 Feb 2019 12:39:03 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3https://i0.wp.com/stargazersworld.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/gplus-54514593_site_icon.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1Stargazer's Worldhttps://stargazersworld.com
32324626023http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/StargazersWorldhttps://feedburner.google.comSubscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with PageflakesAdd to Any Feed ReaderHuge Pathfinder Bundle for $18http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/u5gRwch7PjY/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/21/huge-pathfinder-bundle-for-18/#respondThu, 21 Feb 2019 12:39:03 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15850Continue reading Huge Pathfinder Bundle for $18→]]>A friend of mine just pointed a pretty good deal out to me. In order to celebrate Pathfinder 10th anniversary, Humble Bundle is selling $505 worth of Pathfinder stuff for mere $18.

The offer is tiered with the lowest tier starting at $1 and containing the Pathfinder Beginner Box, the core rules, several sourcebooks and trial access to Pathfinder Online. The next tier starts at $8 and contains additional material like the Advanced Player’s Guide and the Villain Codex. The third tier starts at $15 and contains books like the Ultimate series of sourcebooks, Bestiary 2 and 3. Last but not least the highest tier starts at $18 and contains more material for Pathfinder, and also the core rules for Starfinder, Paizo’s new Science-Fantasy RPG.

Of course you can always decide to pay more. Each Humble Bundle sold supports charity. You can either choose the one featured by Humble Bundle this month, or choose your own.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/21/huge-pathfinder-bundle-for-18/feed/015850https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/21/huge-pathfinder-bundle-for-18/Twitter Updatehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/PJBF6oCe94U/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/19/twitter-update/#respondTue, 19 Feb 2019 19:35:50 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15844This is a short update to let you all know that I’ve created a new Twitter account. From now on, my old account @StargazersWorld will be exclusively for blog-related stuff, while my personal account @LordStargazer is for everything else. Please note that it will probably take me a couple of days to get everything sorted.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/19/twitter-update/feed/015844https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/19/twitter-update/We have to be better than this!http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/bTwGICudpBI/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/11/we-have-to-be-better-than-this/#commentsMon, 11 Feb 2019 10:07:53 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15828Continue reading We have to be better than this!→]]>Update #2: Zak has posted his statement regarding the accusations here.

Update:Vivka Grey, a woman, who lived with Zak and Mandy for a while, and who also was featured in the “I hit it with my axe” show, also shared her experiences with Zak on her FB page.

I’ve struggled with this post for quite some time. Sometimes writing about important topics is incredibly hard. Sometimes you just don’t want to keep quiet, but you also don’t have the right words. At this moment, I feel angry, sad and ashamed. So what is all this about? Mandy, the ex-girlfriend of the (in)famous Zak S. has written a lengthy post on Facebook about her relationship with him. And as it turns out, he has been abusing her physically and mentally for years.

For anyone who was interacting with him, it was quite obvious that he has an abrasive nature, to put it mildly. He can’t stand being criticized, he’s a bully and a troll. But still a lot of people respected him as a creator – including me. Eventually I got tired of his behavior and openly stated that I am done defending him. But even then I thought that his online persona was more of an act. I believed that behind the mask he was wearing, there was a kind and caring person.

When I read the post about Zak’s abuse, the thing that shocked me the most was that I wasn’t that surprised. At this point I realized that I should have seen it all along. There have been so many signs which a lot of us chose to ignore. We have to be better than this! Damn, I should be better than this! It’s so easy to overlook one’s terrible behavior because we enjoy the product they created for our favorite games. We try to rationalize why we still support someone even though we know we shouldn’t. In a way we help people like this to continue abusing others.

It was extremely brave of Mandy to share her story. She has been living in an abusive relationship for years and her abuser even used her as a shield. At this point there’s not much I can do to help her, aside from believing in her, and sharing her story, so that others don’t have to suffer the way she had to. We also should stop supporting people like Zak. We should not buy his works, invite him to conventions, interview him for our blogs or podcasts, interact with him on social media. Most importantly we should support the victims and believe their stories.

Do I think that things in the RPG community will finally change for the better? No. I am almost 100% sure that there are still many RPG fans who will support their favorite creators to the end, even if they turn out to be terrible people. For some their favorite “elf games” are more important than the lives of other people. That’s the harsh reality. But that doesn’t mean we should stop struggling. We have to try to be better than that!

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/11/we-have-to-be-better-than-this/feed/715828https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/11/we-have-to-be-better-than-this/Zweihänder Collaborationhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/DY1NhX0CWjo/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/08/zweihander-collaboration/#respondFri, 08 Feb 2019 16:54:32 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15825Continue reading Zweihänder Collaboration→]]>If you had ever wanted to get into writing RPG supplements but don’t think you could write an entire book then there is an interesting project going on in the Zweihänder community.

I have already submitted a few ideas around the idea of a private collection or menagerie of beasts that escape so you a Rhinoceros in the high street and lions in the formal gardens. I am also quite interested in characters being chased by things. Does anyone remember the Indiana Jones scene with the rolling rock?

I would like to publish a chase along similar lines but with the landscape being torn apart by lava flows.

None of these ideas on their own would really justify their own supplement but as part of a collection they could well inspire another GM.

Anyone who takes part in the project gets a free copy of the finished supplement but they also get paid at roughly ten cents a page.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/08/zweihander-collaboration/feed/015825https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/08/zweihander-collaboration/Games I’m excited about: Android – Shadow of the Beanstalkhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/GYyGHVz2bBE/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/04/games-im-excited-about-android-shadow-of-the-beanstalk/#respondMon, 04 Feb 2019 10:43:18 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15812Continue reading Games I’m excited about: Android – Shadow of the Beanstalk→]]>Android: Shadow of the Beanstalk is a new and upcoming setting for FFG’s Genesys Roleplaying Game. Like Realms of Terrinoth it’s based on one of FFG’s preexisting IPs. While RoT was based on the fantasy setting explored in games like Runebound, Descent, or Runewars, this time we’ll get to visit the world of Android, and Android: Netrunner. It’s a near-future science fiction roleplaying game with cyberpunk and transhumanistic elements. And it’s the setting I’ve been waiting for ages now.

A while back they already released a coffee table book called The Worlds of Android, which gave an extensive overview of the setting, but lacked any game rules. I guess you could probably run a game set into the Android universe with the rules in the Genesys corebook alone, but more material is always welcome.

When FFG first announced Genesys many fans were hoping for an Android setting and indeed, one of the included example settings in the final book was in fact Android. The sample settings included in the core rulebook were of course just teasers. So what is the Android setting all about? Let me quote FFG’s product page:

In the not so-distant future, humanity has spread across the solar system, unlocked the frontiers of cyberspace, and created millions of intelligent androids in its own image. At the heart of this progress stands a ladder leading to the riches of the stars—the massive space elevator called the Beanstalk. And at its base sprawls the biggest, meanest, and most exciting city on Earth: New Angeles.

The sourcebook’s 256 pages will include rules on character creation, new equipment and vehicles, game master advice, adversaries, and any information needed to successfully run a game set in New Angeles, the future Earth, or the solar system.

So why am I so excited about this? I love cyberpunk settings. Unfortunately most settings are deeply tied to the 1980s and often have a retro feel to them. This might have a certain charm, but sometimes you are looking for a more modern feel. Android definitely delivers on that front. I am also glad FFG decided to use their Genesys rules for an Android games. It’s easy to learn, simple and fast to run, but it has still enough depth for a long-time campaign.

What are your thoughts on Shadow of the Beanstalk? What other setting teased in the Genesys core rulebook are you excited about? Please share your thoughts below.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/04/games-im-excited-about-android-shadow-of-the-beanstalk/feed/015812https://stargazersworld.com/2019/02/04/games-im-excited-about-android-shadow-of-the-beanstalk/Kickstarter: Secretum Mundi – The book of the Secret Worldhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/WHJaocakh_8/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/29/kickstarter-secretum-mundi-the-book-of-the-secret-world/#respondTue, 29 Jan 2019 09:55:46 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15804Continue reading Kickstarter: Secretum Mundi – The book of the Secret World→]]>As I’ve mentioned before, I love the stuff Greg Saunders creates. Last year, I helped fund Esoterica, his occult-themed roleplaying game using the OpenD6 System. Today, I want to point you towards his latest Kickstarter project which already reached its goal (It was funded in one day!) and will end in about 12 hours. So what is it all about? Let me quote the Kickstarter page:

This project is to create and publish a encyclopedic-style supplement for the Esoterica Roleplaying game, or for any other roleplaying game that focuses on the occult and magic in the modern world. The book will contain a range of alphabetized entries on occult individuals, places, events and items, the majority of which will have plot hooks that can be used to create adventures. Also, many of the entries will interlink (i.e. reference each other), so that several entries can be used to create a mini campaign. The book doesn’t contain any rules and is therefore system neutral, so it can be used with any occult-themed roleplaying game.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/29/kickstarter-secretum-mundi-the-book-of-the-secret-world/feed/015804https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/29/kickstarter-secretum-mundi-the-book-of-the-secret-world/Lazy Tuesday Video Post: Rules Lawyershttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/FinOEccFDaE/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/29/lazy-tuesday-video-post-rules-lawyers/#respondTue, 29 Jan 2019 07:25:44 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15800Continue reading Lazy Tuesday Video Post: Rules Lawyers→]]>We all know the kind of player who constantly gets into rules discussions with the GM. These players are often called rules lawyers. But I recently stumbled upon a YouTube video by a guy called Ben who argues that there are actually two kinds of rules lawyers, and while the one kind just wants to play the game rules-as-written, there’s a second kind who bends the rules to fit their wishes.

What are your thoughts on rules lawyers? Please share your comments below. I also highly recommend to check out the other videos on this channel. Some of the D&D stories are hilariously funny!

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/29/lazy-tuesday-video-post-rules-lawyers/feed/015800https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/29/lazy-tuesday-video-post-rules-lawyers/Humble RPG Book Bundle: Numenerahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/UnKsBhm7lE0/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/24/humble-rpg-book-bundle-numenera/#respondThu, 24 Jan 2019 07:01:43 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15797Continue reading Humble RPG Book Bundle: Numenera→]]>If you always wanted to check out Monte Cook’s Numenera, but shunned the investment, now’s your chance. Monte Cook Games and Humble Bundle have teamed up to bring you a bundle containing $260 worth of Numenera PDFs including the new core books Destiny and Discovery. Even if you already own a couple of the books included it might still be worth it. The first tier sets you back $1 and includes the two core books plus 6 additional products. The highest tier is $15. Of course you can always opt to pay more. As with all Humble Bundles a portion of the money paid goes to a charity of your choice. The bundle is available for 13 more days.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/24/humble-rpg-book-bundle-numenera/feed/015797https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/24/humble-rpg-book-bundle-numenera/ZWEIHÄNDER supplement round uphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/e_rkhYSOYUk/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/22/zweihander-supplement-round-up/#commentsTue, 22 Jan 2019 21:30:39 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15794Continue reading ZWEIHÄNDER supplement round up→]]>I have spent nearly all of January reading the ZWEIHÄNDER core book. It is nearly 700 dense pages and I am still only on page 350 or so. The current chapter I am reading is over 110 pages and that is a single chapter!

I will be doing a review of ZWEIHÄNDER at some point but I cannot review something I have neither read no played.

In the meantime I have also picked up some ZWEIHÄNDER supplements. These are an awful lot more digestible as seeing as ZWEIHÄNDER is as popular as it is I thought I would do a quick round up of the ones I have read.

I am going to take a bit of a ‘top down’ approach. I am starting with Carrion Crows which is a campaign seed. As ZWEIHÄNDER has no official setting Carrion Crows creates that setting and provides some entry points.

Undead Cometh is an adventure for ZWEIHÄNDER but with a really unusual methodology, well it is new on me at any rate.

Finally, I will look at Ballers which is a themed collection of professions, talents and rules for the game of Blitzball in the world of ZWEIHÄNDER.

Carrion Crows

Carrion Crows is a campaign seed. I am going to show my naivety here and admit that I didn’t know what a campaign seed was, by name, until I saw this. For those uninformed people like me it is a combination of micro setting and adventure hooks rolled into a coherent whole. I was once told that Jeep was a military acronym for Just Enough Essential Parts, which is probably not true as it sounds more like a backronym if anything. Well Carrion Crows is a ZWEIHÄNDER jeep. To make sense of the booklet Carrion Crows are the myriad of humanity that pick over battlefields looking to scavenge what can be found. The world of Carrion Crows has heroic knights doing great deeds and then moving on to the next world saving battle but the PCs are not those knights. The PCs in Carrion Crows are those grim faced ones who have to pick up the pieces afterwards and do those smaller quests that may on have meaning to a family or a village but are nevertheless just as important.

The world is resented for the most part through the testimony of those that live in the world, in their own words so to speak. Once the tone is set then the major factions are explained. The links into the ZWEIHÄNDER rules come with rules for The Contagion which is a corrupting central theme of the setting and by tying recommended professions into these factions vying for influence.

ZWEIHÄNDER claims to setting neutral which is really not true, they just have not bundled everything up into a product called Setting. The core book has a world influencing magic system that does not exist in a vacuum, it has gods and religions, it has opinions on how common magic is in society and magical schools and guilds and unsanctioned magic users. All of that is setting. All it is really missing is name, a map and a timeline.

Carrion Crows does not break anything in the implied setting build into ZWEIHÄNDER but it does add another layer of coherency and details a 40 year period building up to the start of the campaign.

All in all it is written with a good dash of black humour and at 20 pages it is easy to absorb. It is not massive but I think that is a plus as often the info dump on new players in a new setting is so massive that most of it is lost anyway.

There are definitely two halves to this supplement and I want to deal with the dice side first to get it out of the way. Then the second part with be easier to explain.

The Undead Cometh uses a mechanic called Meta Dice or Md. Md are a pool of, initially d10s. The pool is built up using facts from your actual game, the more PCs there are more dice, the larger the settlement they are in the more dice, the better the quality of the settlement the more dice. So loads of PCs in a fantastic city equals loads of dice. When a d10 rolls a 10 you take it out of the pool and replace it with a d6. When a d6 rolls a 6 you take out of the pool and discard it. In this way the Md pool with errode aware to nothing over a period of time.

The sum of the Md pool is then used as points to buy resources. If you want a combat encounter then each creature has a point value and you can spend the meta points on buying the creatures. If you want loot then you can spend the points on nice things. If the PCs keep going out and killing things then as the Md pool erodes there will be less and less things to kill. If they keep looting then eventually they will have looted everything.

The point of all this is that the entire adventure is going to scale up and down to any size party and any location.

So that is the dice side dealt with.

The Undead Cometh is a bit like a zombie apocalypse world. The characters get lost and wander into settlement that appears at first to be deserted. A couple of d6s decide the size and condition of the place. It then soon become apparent that they are not alone, probably right after the first undead attack, I would guess.

Each settlement visited contains many weak undead but only one Defiler. Defilers are special as not only are they intelligent but they can create minor undead.

Because of the Md erosion mechanic it is entirely possible for a party of PCs to rid the town of the undead and the Defiler at the heart of it.

This entire adventure takes place in an unnatural fog that has settled over the region. This means that you do not really need endless town and city maps as the characters world extends to only a dozen feet in any direction for most of the time and less at night.

Once each town is cleared the next place they encounter is yet another random village/town/city in a groundhog day nightmare until such time as you choose to release them.

I absolutely love this Meta Dice mechanic but my only concern is that it will very quickly become obvious that this is a randomise adventure.

This is a shameless plug but one of the things I sell on DTRPG is random dice tables. I think they are awesome anyway for making random events seem scripted. In this instance I think that marrying up my random ZWEIHÄNDER dice tables, they have both d10 and d6 rolls amongst the other most common rolls on every page, with an adventure like this is a perfect match.

My only reservation with this supplement is that at 10 pages of which three are cover, credits and notices and there are two pages of blank record sheets you are actually getting just 5 pages of content for $4.99. I have seen more substantial adventures for less money. What it is worth to you is a personal decision. The Meta Dice mechanic alone does it for me.

Ballers

In the first edition of the ZWEIHÄNDER fanzine Sllsword there was mention of the game of Bloodblitz Football or Blitzball. This is due to come back in Main Gauche.

What Mariusz Malinowski has done with Ballers is take that game and create all the rules, the professions and talents and even character advancement needed to add the game to you campaign. You take these rules and weave them into you setting, adding teams to your main cities and building up rivalries that match the political tensions of your world.

The rules themselves were inspired by the Fantasy Gridiron Football (FGF) board game adaptation by Jervis Johnson published by Games Workshop.

I will confess that I know nothing of FGF and nothing about the gridiron football so that side I cannot comment on but what I can say is that of the supplements I have seen so far Mariusz has set the highest standard. This is a dense set of rules but the production quality if spot on. If I had to niggle then I would say that the front cover is the weakest element. Turn the page and you are in for a very professional looking supplement packed with everything that you need to add this layer to your game and world.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/22/zweihander-supplement-round-up/feed/215794https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/22/zweihander-supplement-round-up/Super-Powered Bundles of Holdinghttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/8AGZYCc5SUE/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/16/super-powered-bundles-of-holding/#respondWed, 16 Jan 2019 08:06:08 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15787Continue reading Super-Powered Bundles of Holding→]]>Recently two new Bundles of Holding started featuring products from 1997’s Trinity roleplaying game and 1999’s prequel Aberrant respectively. In both games you play super-powered individuals in a 22nd century setting.

In Aberrant you’re a nova, a group of people who suddenly developed superpowers. These powers come from the nova’s ability to manipulate energy at a subatomic level. Unfortunately these powers come at a price. Novas suffer from the Taint, which is ultimately a side effect of their quantum manipulation which causes physical and mental defects. The game mostly focuses on the conflict between the super-powered novas with each other, the effects of the Taint, and how society reacts on people with quasi godlike powers.

Trinity is the direct sequel (even though it came out a few years earlier). The novas have caused tremendous destruction on Earth and eventually left Earth into deep space. While still recovering from the trauma of the war caused by the aberrants, which the novas are then called, new technologies were developed and a new breed of super-powered individuals emerged. These “psionic” abilities have to be awakened through a technological process, are much more limited in scope and power, and don’t seem to come with the Taint afflicting the novas. Six Psionic Orders have formed which focus on one aspect of Psionics each and they are at the forefront of defending Earth and exploring space.

Both games use a modified version of White Wolf’s Storyteller System. I’ve run Trinity back in the late ‘90s and while the system has quite a few fiddly bits, things ran pretty smoothly. Onyx Path currently working on a new edition of the Trinity Universe games, but these two Bundles of Holding are a perfect opportunity to pick up these two classic if underrated game lines for a very reasonable price.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/16/super-powered-bundles-of-holding/feed/015787https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/16/super-powered-bundles-of-holding/The Mercer Effecthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/k_4FR_x4pkg/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/15/the-mercer-effect/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2019 10:10:31 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15780Continue reading The Mercer Effect→]]>Without a doubt, Matthew Mercer and the rest of the Critical Role team has had a huge impact on how many people perceive roleplaying games in general and Dungeons & Dragons in particular. Their show is wildly popular, watching others play D&D has suddenly become more mainstream, something a lot of people enjoy tremendously. What sets Critical Role apart from many other groups posting their actual play sessions to the internet is that they are all professional voice actors who have played together for many years now. Their particular skills and their particular gaming style help to make their game sessions interesting to watch.

People are obviously inspired by the show and try to emulate what they are seeing. There’s nothing wrong about that and even veteran GMs like me might be tempted to go that route. My attempt to take a few pages out of the Matthew Mercer handbook pretty much ended in disaster but that was not their fault but rather me biting off more than I could chew at that moment. I also realized that while D&D 5th Edition is a game I enjoy playing, it’s not a game I am comfortable running at the moment. But I digress.

Things become complicated if people think that Critical Role’s style is the only way to go. There are as many gaming styles as there are gaming groups and no way to play D&D is the wrong one. Some groups focus on player interactions, others revel in tactical combat, others are suckers for a good mystery. For some sandboxing is the way to go, while others prefer a more GM-guided experience (what some might call railroading). But I understand if players or GMs feel threatened that they might be forced to emulate a professional voice actor and GM of 20+ years and his merry band of players which are also professional voice actors. (Check out this post by a Reddit user asking for help to beat the “Mercer effect”)

The most important goal of any game, D&D or not, should be to have fun. You can have a lot of fun even if your game doesn’t meet the standard set by Mercer et al. On the other hand, if that particular gaming style is your thing, it’s definitely achievable. I have personally played in games which were definitely as epic and as intense as any episode of Critical Role.

Without any doubt, shows like Critical Role which expose our hobby to a wider audience are a boon to our hobby and the RPG industry. But we have to make sure that people don’t get the impression that the only fun roleplaying game is D&D 5th Edition or that Matt’s style is the only valid one. What are your thoughts on the Mercer Effect? Please share your thoughts below!

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/15/the-mercer-effect/feed/615780https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/15/the-mercer-effect/Happy New Year–Plans for 2019 and A Look Backhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/pD_R74km_ck/
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/07/happy-new-year-plans-for-2019-and-a-look-back/#commentsMon, 07 Jan 2019 11:34:02 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15765Continue reading Happy New Year–Plans for 2019 and A Look Back→]]>After taking an extensive break over the holidays I am back at work. This is also a good opportunity to give you an update what I have been up to lately. Without further ado, let’s get started…

Forbidden Lands and Shipping Woes
In December Fria Ligan’s latest roleplaying game called Forbidden Lands was finally ready for shipping. It’s a sandbox fantasy roleplaying game which I backed on Kickstarter in 2017. When the game finally was done it was already a bit delayed but that’s something you get used to when you regularly support projects on Kickstarter.

Sometimes things don’t work as planned. Unfortunately, the shipping of the Forbidden Lands boxed sets quickly turned into a total disaster. Backers started to get grumpy when it turned out that the books and boxed sets were already done, but the distributor had to delay shipping because of another Kickstarter fulfilment.

When finally shipping started everyone was excited and a few people quickly got their packages but then things went downhill pretty fast. A lot of backers didn’t get any shipping information even though the distributor claimed they shipped everything. When Fria Ligan support contacted the distributor they got told that the packages have been sent out without tracking – which is a terrible idea considering some people were waiting for stuff worth up to hundreds of Euros. Then the same people suddenly got shipping confirmation emails with conflicting information. Quickly accusations were thrown around and it seemed as if the distributor was lying to both Fria Ligan and the backers.

At this point I decided to write an email to Fria Ligan support, the distributor as well the CEO of Fria Ligan and voice my concerns and displeasure with the whole situation. I usually don’t use my status as an “influencer” but this time I thought it might be wise to throw my weight around. And lo and behold the management director of the distributor reached out to me and they even posted an update to the Kickstarter explaining what went wrong. And only a day or two later packages which have been stuck in some warehouse for ages started to move again.

The whole kerfuffle was caused by the initial shipping delay. Shipment of hundreds of boxed sets coincided with a lot of traffic caused by both the Black Friday sales and pre-holiday online shopping. The distributor’s logistics partner was extremely overwhelmed. Even though they had hired additional help, some shipments stuck for up to two weeks in sorting hubs all over Europe. Bad communication between the distributor, Fria Ligan, and the backers caused a lot of bad blood, but luckily things calmed down after people finally received what they’ve paid for. And oh boy, Forbidden Lands is a beautiful product. The long wait was definitely worth it. I’ll probably write more about it in the future.

Hacking, Alchemy, and animated GIFs
As you probably know I am not only interested in roleplaying games, but I am also a great fan of video games. I also dabbled in software development (which is probably a too big a word for what I’ve been doing) since my teens. So it’s no surprise that I enjoy many of the games released by Zachtronics. Most of their games consist of puzzles which are solved by programming. During the Steam Winter Sale I added both Exapunks and Opus Magnum to my collection. In Exapunks you play a hacker living in an alternative version of 1990s who has to work for a mysterious AI in order to pay for medicine they need to survive. To do your job you use EXAs (which are small software constructs) which you program with a programming language comparable to Assembly language.

The other game I picked up is Opus Magnum which is set into world where Alchemy works. Your job is to design transmutation engines to – for example – turn lead into gold. It reminded me a lot of Zachtronics’ older title SpaceChem, but is much more polished in every way.

You’re probably wondering why I mentioned animated GIFs earlier. This is easily explained. Most new Zachtronics games allow you to export your solutions to the puzzles in the form of animated GIFs! I’ve included one of my solutions to a Exapunks puzzle below.

Demons, Bomb Disposal, and NauseaTraditionally my wife and I spend New Year’s Eve with friends. Usually I run a roleplaying one-shot, but this time I just didn’t feel like it. So our hosts offered we play Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes instead. It’s a party game developed for VR headsets in which one player has to disarm a bomb only they can see, while the other players have access to a manual with disarming instructions. It’s a fun game where precise communication is key. This has actually been the first time I experienced VR on a Playstation 4 and I was surprised how well it worked.

Last time I had the chance to try out a virtual reality headset was when a friend lent me his Oculus Rift Developers Kit 2. My PC at the time was barely VR-ready and most of the games weren’t really optimized yet. When it worked it was pretty impressive, but also extremely nausea-inducing. Surprisingly the PS4 VR headset didn’t cause any of these problems, even though movement in VR still felt a bit weird.

After playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes for a while I also had the opportunity to try out DOOM VFR which was totally awesome! If you ever have the chance to play this game, you definitely should do so. There’s also a video of me playing this game which doesn’t look as silly as I feared, which I might upload to YouTube eventually.

Retro PC Gaming and Thin ClientsThe older I get the more I enjoy playing old computer games from the MS DOS and early Windows era. Some of these games just have a certain charm that modern titles lack. Tools like DOSBOX and online shops like GOG have made it much easier to play old games on modern machines, but there are advantages to running games on actual hardware. While browsing YouTube I stumbled upon various videos in which retro gaming enthusiasts talked about using thin clients for retro gaming.

A thin client is basically a stripped down computer basically not much more than a terminal used to access a remote server. Most of these machines use outdated hardware and are available for just a few bucks on eBay. After doing some research I found out that a good choice for a retro-gaming machine was the HP T5720 thin client. The CPU is not too fast and can be further slowed down by reducing it’s speed multiplayer and disabling its cache. This can even be done by software while the computer is running. This is perfect if you intend to play old DOS games.

Quickly I found an HP T5720 on Amazon Marketplace for less than 20€. Unfortunately the seller supplied the wrong AC adapter. Luckily he immediately sent me the correct one, but alas the thin client still didn’t work. This time replacing the CMOS battery did the trick. While opening the machine I also found out that the seller sent me the HP T5730 by mistake. For a moment I considered returning it, but then decided to keep it for some other future project.

A few days later I found an offer for a HP T5720 on eBay. After the auction was done it turned out I was the highest bidder and for less than €20 including shipping it was mine! This time I got the correct machine including the original packaging, all documentation, a USB keyboard and a PS2 mouse. Yay!

It took me a while until I figured out how to install Windows 98 using an USB drive, but after a couple of hours my retro-gaming PC was working fine. The sound chip included on the mainboard is unfortunately not 100% DOS compatible, but works fine under Windows. I own a couple of games intended for Windows 95 and 98 which are almost impossible to play on modern machines, which should work fine on the thin client. If you’re interested in reading more about this project, please let me know.

Roleplaying game plans for 2019Over the holidays I also had the opportunity to think about how my roleplaying activities went last year and what my plans for the future are. When it comes to Kickstarter projects 2018 was for me dominated by Fria Ligan projects – and not just on Kickstarter. I have probably played Mutant Year Zero, Genlab Alpha and Mechatron more often than any other roleplaying game this year. I also own Tales from the Loop and have backed their successor Things from the Flood which I am very excited about. I have considered running the games for a while now, I just couldn’t commit myself to preparing anything yet.

My last few years as a DM have been dominated by failures and even though I feel the itch to run a roleplaying game from time to time, I haven’t been able to commit to anything yet. I also know that I’ll have to make some unpopular decisions in the future. The group I regularly play with is just too big, so I have to make up my mind who I want to invite to a new game. Regardless of who I pick, scheduling will probably an issue, and this had lead to some serious burn-out in the past. I don’t know why scheduling issues are such a huge problem for me, but it drives me totally bonkers.

I also would love to write more in general and definitely more regularly for the blog, but my lack of writing is directly tied to my lack of DMing. It’s much easier to come up with interesting topics to write about if you run a weekly game. I haven’t run anything in quite some time, and I am not sure if it’s wise to bore you with stories of my failed attempts to get a new campaign running. Heck, I am already boring myself just thinking about it…

So what have you folks been up to lately? What are your plans for 2019? Please share your comments below!

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/07/happy-new-year-plans-for-2019-and-a-look-back/feed/215765https://stargazersworld.com/2019/01/07/happy-new-year-plans-for-2019-and-a-look-back/CYOA – My Plans and My Dead Endshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/Ct7E-ntJvcc/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/29/cyoa-my-plans/#commentsSat, 29 Dec 2018 10:18:47 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15753Continue reading CYOA – My Plans and My Dead Ends→]]>So I said in my post back on December 22nrd (Terrible Habits) that I wanted to write a Fighting Fantasy style book. In truth I wanted to write multiple fighting fantasy style books but you have to start with a first one.

I thought I was doing quite well. I had a target of writing 20 paragraphs a day and I was hitting that target. I had a method for jumbling the paragraphs up and tracking the story through the book and I had the beginnings of the game elements. Those are important and I will come back to them.

Where things started to go wrong was at paragraph 100. Fighting Fantasy style books are typically 400 paragraphs long. The way I was writing the book was that I wanted five distinct chapters. The first took place in a town, there was a jail break, a murder and a couple of robberies that you could discover and investigate, your character was a Deputy Sheriff. These would give you varying amounts of information about what you would face later in the adventure. When there were choices I was giving the paragraph number for the next paragraph in the ‘direct’ route but highlighting a placeholder for the other options. Where two or more options actually lead to the same place I had highlighted those in a different colour. That way you had the illusion of choice but they actually lead to the same thing. One of those was that there were several ways that you could end up taking the same horse so those routes would all lead to the same paragraph where you tack up Phoenix and ride him out of town.

I suspect that as a role player I am used to having no restrictions on my choices barring setting and genre. I accept that I cannot cast spells in a Special Ops game and I cannot have a Glock 17 in a dungeon crawl. No problem with that. Staying within the genre though I can go anywhere and do anything my character is capable of. By the time I had reached paragraph 100 in my book I had more than 300 other options for the reader and I suspect that each of those would have been anywhere between three and twenty paragraphs in length depending on what sort of alternative it was. This was only in the first chapter of my story.

So we are looking at something like 1.000 paragraphs for chapter one and 5.000 paragraphs for the book. That is assuming I don’t get carried away with sub plots. All the writing advice says that sub plots are a good thing so you have to have subplots.

Part of me paragraph explosion is, again, down to the advice on writing these books. The all agree that conversations aid the characterisation. If you give people choices about how they respond to the people they meet and the questions they ask or are asked then that is going to explode the paragraph count. The central character is a law officer so asking questions is part of the territory.

At 20 paragraphs a day a 5.000 paragraph book is going to take about 9 months and that leaves very little editing time for a major editing task.

There is another way

Choose Your Own Adventure [CYOA] books area slightly different to Fighting Fantasy. For a start they do not work at a paragraph level but rather at a page level. This means that you can write an entire page of dialogue of an interrogation if that is what the story requires and you only really need a couple of choices that boil down to good cop/bad cop. CYOA books are smaller in scope as well. They are typically 75 to 120 pages and the direct route is often only 20 to 30 pages in length. Looking at that proportionally three quarters of the book is sub plots or side adventures. I have done a quick word count average and most pages seem to have less than 200 words so that puts them in the same sort of word count as a FF book, at about 20.000 words, but with a much simpler structure.

Here is the snag. CYOA books tend not to have character sheets or game elements. I want both. The reason for that is my original motivation for creating the book.

Most indie games are chasing the same few GMs and Players. There are GMs that will play the same few big brand games, the DnD, PF, GURPs and FATE for examples. Then there are GMs and players who will try anything but will tend to keep moving on to whatever is new. The holy grail of game design is to write a game that has its own loyal following who will play your game for years.

I think the one way to stop cannibalising the same old audience is to make new role players. I think I said this last time. I want my new role players to be trained in how my setting works and how my game mechanics work and how a character works. To hit all of those criteria I need my game book to have a stripped down version of the character and the core game mechanics.

There do not seem to be any CYOA police out there who will object if I gamify my book. There is a dedicated bookstore called cyoa.com and an indie site called chooseyourstory.com but I don’t really intend to sell through them. Maybe later I could approach them and see how they take it. One never knows!

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/29/cyoa-my-plans/feed/515753https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/29/cyoa-my-plans/Finishing A Project, Looking Backhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/jIJjqPxxUkE/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/28/finishing-a-project-looking-back/#commentsFri, 28 Dec 2018 21:13:39 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15748Continue reading Finishing A Project, Looking Back→]]>Back in September I wrote a couple of posts about long running reviews. Well it is now 28th of December and I have just finished my series on HARP, High Adventure Role Playing. I started on 10th of September and finished on 28th of December and it took 13 posts.

Obviously HARP is not a new game but Rolemaster Unified [RMU] is and a lot of the ‘new’ features in RMU have come from HARP where they are tried and tested.

I am glad to have completed this project as I had made a point of mentioning that Jeremy Friesen’s read through of Stars Without Number had been the inspiration but had also seemingly stalled. I do not have any of the difficulties Jeremy has had in keeping my Rolemaster blog updated. Even without external pressures I was shocked at how long it took to get this completed. Part of the problem is that people who read the Rolemaster Blog are not necessarily interested in HARP. Rolemaster is seen as the grown up game and HARP is the smaller, lighter version. In reality HARP is a full standalone game in its own right and does a lot of things as well or better than Rolemaster. Doing the read through has taught me a lot that I would not have discovered at a single read through. The difference came, I think, from the readers comments and questions.

If I had written a single article I would never have been able to cover the game in the detail I gave it. I would never have got the level of user engagement and furthermore I got regular HARP players chipping in who had more experience I had.

Having completed the series I agree with Jeremy that a read through is a massive undertaking and a lot of work but it broadened the appeal of my blog to new readers and it proved interesting to the regular readers once they got over the fact that I was not talking about Rolemaster.

Would I do this again? I certainly would. As long as there was a directly relationship to my regular readers. I don’t think I could do that here on Stargazer’s World as it would be a huge imposition to bang on about the same game week after week.

I think the next one I do will be for a completely new game rather than something old and well known.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/28/finishing-a-project-looking-back/feed/215748https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/28/finishing-a-project-looking-back/Terrible Habitshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/Ccdu8v7gy8M/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/22/terrible-habits/#commentsSat, 22 Dec 2018 18:39:06 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15744Continue reading Terrible Habits→]]>Amongst other things I am an indie game developer and a hobbiest programmer. This means that I often find that if I cannot find just the right game or just the right gaming tool it is extremely tempting to create my own.

I really enjoy creating games and adventures. I really enjoy the challenge of learning new skills particularly when I am programming. Right now I am dabbling with Android programming using Java. I can write apps but the next thing I want to get to grips with is changing activities by swiping left or right.

So what has this to do with bad habits?

All of this stuff I do for fun. It costs me nothing to write a game, they are after all simply Word Documents until you decide to take things further. It costs nothing to code a phone app. They take time but they are fun so it is free entertainment.

The bad habit is procrastination. I was chatting with Michael recently, early November I think, and I said that have a habit of writing blog posts when I am supposed to be doing other things. Well here I am again avoiding doing something that I will enjoy doing by writing blog posts.

So the thing I am avoiding is writing a adventure game book. I imagine that we have all read or played one of these at some point in the past. I started with Warlock of Firetop Mountain and I actually replayed the Sorcery! series last year when I was on holiday.

How I came to start on this journey is rather circuitous. We were talking on the Rolemaster forums about the target audience for the new edition of Rolemaster. Some people seemed think that a new version of Rolemaster would draw in new players from DnD. That is where the first players came from back in the early 1980s for the first edition of Rolemaster.

I tend to disagree. I can find no evidence that new games gain market share from the DnD following. It is more a case that people who play DnD may dabble with other games but tend to keep going back to DnD. If you ever have to change who you play with, because you have moved or your regular group broke up then it is a thousand times easier to find DnD players than any other system.

I was looking at my own habits and those of people I know who tend to play the widest variety of games. The common factor seems to be that we are always moving on. We pick up a game, play it for a while and then something else comes out and that takes our fancy so we pick that up and play that. The process is never ending. What this means for the smaller indie games producers is that although they may sell a couple of hundred copies of their game, the number of people in the market for follow on books is potentially very small. Take Zweihänder for example. I was looking at the Grim and Perilous Library today. The best selling third party supplement has sold less that 100 copies in four months and yet Zweihänder itself has sold something like 10,000 copies.

So it has been bubbling away in the back of my mind as to where do you get new players from.

Jump forward a few weeks and there was an indie game developer on MeWe who was rattling off his design criteria and one of them was to attract new players. I asked how was he intending to do that and the response was to make the game very close to DnD. I thought that those are not new players they are just new customers. A totally different thing. As part of that discussion it came out that one of the perceived problems with introducing new players was ‘info dump’. Introducing a new setting, all the rules that make up an RPG, all the options for creating characters and so on. Some of these you can avoid by using pre-gen characters for new players. All the character generation choices are taken away and they get to see a model character and how it all hangs together before they have to create their own.

I then had my thought. A game book is a great way of introducing a a setting. You get all the words you need to describe the setting, key NPCs and set the tone. It is easy enough to create a cut down version of any rule set to fit in with the game but at the same time introduce a games core mechanic. At the end of a game book you can prompt people with the idea of limitless adventures if they upgrade to the full RPG version. Game books are a an ideal ‘gateway drug’ for RPGs and every game book reader that you convert into a role player is a completely new person introduced to the hobby.

The advantages don’t end there. A game book is free to create, just like any game it just takes time, creativity and effort. It is free to publish thanks to POD, Drivethrufiction and Amazon’s Direct Publishing.

People pay for books, so what I am seeing as an advert to hook people into buying games, other people are prepared to pay good money for. The average game books seems to be selling for about £4 (€5/$5).

Looking at the actual task of writing a game book at they are remarkably short. Tradition says they are 400 paragraphs long and the average paragraph is just 50 words. Some are much longer but they are balanced by “Your adventure ends here” when you die. 400×50 is just 20.000 words. Compared to a novel 20k words is pretty short, or manageable depending on your point of view.

The ‘direct route’ through a game book is typically 75 paragraphs or about 4.000 words which feels quite doable. The rest is alternative routes, additional encounters and dead ends. This blog post is over 1.000 words and has only taken half an hour to produce.

So here I am I have a game book to write. If I get on with it I could write it in a matter of days. If I do write it I could earn a few pounds in sales, and then earn a few more pounds in selling copies of my own games and I will have introduced a few more people into the pleasure of role playing. A truly virtuous circle.

But what am I actually doing? I am writing a blog post about how I am avoiding doing what I am supposed to be doing to avoid the thing I am supposed to be doing.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/22/terrible-habits/feed/815744https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/22/terrible-habits/Somewhat Disconnectedhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/oQLXpEdgrp4/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/11/somewhat-disconnected/#commentsTue, 11 Dec 2018 16:06:06 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15739Continue reading Somewhat Disconnected→]]>I realised today that all the adventures I have run in the past five years have been set above ground. One was on a snowy mountain top in the treeline in the dead of winter, one was in a fictitious Google office block in Mexico City, another in a Colombian jungle against a drug cartel, yet another was in the Spiderhaunt forest in the Forgotten Realms. No dungeons!

All the adventures I have played in the past five years have been the underground headquarters of an evil magician in Shadow World with a mix of old tech and fantasy, an underground undead infested cave system, and orchold and a hobgoblin cave system.

The last adventures I have published have been a cave system used by an evil magician but behind it was a lovecraftian old gods site and a cave system filled with (avatar inspired) cat people ruled by an assassin were-tiger queen.

I haven’t published an above ground adventure in 3 months.

So I wonder why I don’t run dungeons?

I suspect there is an element of GM-snobbery going on. I tend to look down my nose at dungeons and bring up all those arguments about who built them and how do the inhabitants survive if this place was abandoned for centuries or how do all these chaotic evil races coexist so happily in this closed environment. I also don’t like dungeons because there is no one to talk to. There is no reason not to put intelligent beings in a dungeon but then you need to be able to justify why they are there and be prepared for your players to ‘charm’ and extract huge amounts of information about the dungeon and its workings, how to avoid traps and guards etc.

I think I am in a minority as the megadungeon seems really popular part of the whole retro gaming scene as does doing/clearing old style dungeons.

One of my failings as a GM is that my descriptions tend to fade away. I may start an adventure giving vivid and rich descriptions of the locations to set the scene, like “The corridor is heavy with the stench of burning pitch and the blocks of stone that make the ceiling are blackened with soot, the yellow light of the torches reveal the passage way to be disused and filled with standing puddles of water. The stones of the walls are slick with green algae and rivulets of water run down the mortar joins. Drips from the ceiling fall into the wide puddles that ripple with with every drop and the sound echoes along the corridor. ” but by the third dungeon corridor this is starting to slip towards “it is a 20m corridor, lit by pitch torches, there is a ironbound door at the far end with a burning torch either side of it.“

By the fifth corridor I have described the same stone working techniques, the walls are still wet and the torches are still burning, the players are either imagining it or they are aren’t.

Interestingly, I don’t have this problem with my PBP game. I think as there could be a day or so between describing one room to the next, laying on extra atmosphere feels less like banging the same drum.

So how many of you enjoy clearing dungeons? Am I unusual in avoiding that as a location or backdrop for adventures?

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/11/somewhat-disconnected/feed/815739https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/11/somewhat-disconnected/Unrealistic Hitpoints, Funny Dice and Descending AChttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/tDsJJLPgZL8/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/07/unrealistic-hitpoints-funny-dice-and-descending-ac/#commentsFri, 07 Dec 2018 07:48:44 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15734Continue reading Unrealistic Hitpoints, Funny Dice and Descending AC→]]>The origins of D&D always fascinated me. For me it is very exciting to learn about the early days of our hobby, where fantasy roleplaying came from, and how certain aspects made it into the game.

Earlier today I stumbled upon two articles on the DM David blog which I found particularly enlightening:

In the original D&D rule books, the combat system that everyone used appears as the Alternative Combat System. “Alternative” because players could just use the combat system from Chainmail instead. When Dave launched Blackmoor, he tried the Chainmailsystem. But it focused on battles between armies sprinkled with legendary heroes and monsters. For ongoing adventures in the dungeon under Castle Blackmoor, the rules needed changes. Original Blackmoor player Greg Svenson recalls that within about a month of play, the campaign created new rules for damage rolls and hit points. (More recently, Steve Winter, a D&D designer since 1st edition, tells of playing the original game with the Chainmail combat rules.)

If you’re interested in the history of our hobby like me, you definitely should check out DM David’s blog.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/07/unrealistic-hitpoints-funny-dice-and-descending-ac/feed/215734https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/07/unrealistic-hitpoints-funny-dice-and-descending-ac/Classic Traveller “Starter Traveller” now available for freehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/a1vKrfedd_0/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/06/classic-traveller-starter-traveller-now-available-for-free/#respondThu, 06 Dec 2018 07:14:36 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15719Continue reading Classic Traveller “Starter Traveller” now available for free→]]>In 1983 GDW released a boxed set for Traveller (now called Classic Traveller) which contained everything you needed to get started with Traveller. The rules had been streamlined from the original. Especially the space combat had been overhauled to make it much less complex and move it closer to personal combat.

This edition of CT is currently available for free on DriveThruRPG. I don’t know if this is a permanent change or a temporary one. It has been available for free before, but it usually reverted back to being a paid product after a short while. So pick it up as soon as possible.

CT is definitely not a modern game by any stretch, but it’s part of roleplaying history. Any GM or player interested in science fiction should definitely give it a look, and Starter Traveller is perfect for that purpose!

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/06/classic-traveller-starter-traveller-now-available-for-free/feed/015719https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/06/classic-traveller-starter-traveller-now-available-for-free/Raising Azazel (a FUDGE game)http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/2MkpPFBDLYM/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/03/raising-azazel-a-fudge-game/#respondMon, 03 Dec 2018 09:31:22 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15712Continue reading Raising Azazel (a FUDGE game)→]]>So you may remember that I wrote at the start of November that I was going to do the NaGaDeMon challenge this year.

I managed to write and publish my game, going by the name of Raising Azazel. It is a PWYW on Drivethrurpg.

The challenge I signed up for was a FUDGE specific one. There are lots of different challenges in the NaGaDeMon community and the FUDGE one suited me and was technically a bit easier in that the core mechanics are already tried and tested. It then became more about creating the setting and the story background and then customising FUDGE to bring it all together.

A month is surprisingly short when you set a deadline at the end of it!

The game I released was virtually unedited, had only been played once and in hindsight has some rather important omissions such as there is space of the character sheet for experience but absolutely no rules for experience in the game.

I did create lots of bespoke art for the finished, and I use the word finished lightly, game but every single piece is in exactly the same size and format. If I were to do the page layout again I would recreate most of the art.

I wanted the rule book to be almost a graphic novel with all the background and game setting depicted that way. As it is you get one page of the graphic novel and then a few odd panels dotted through the book. Graphic novels are hard to write if you are rather talentless as a writer!

Still talking about layout there is one example explaining a rule that is separated off into a boxout but none of the others are. I think they all should be so they are easier to find.

Something that I had seen in Terry Amthor’s Shadow World books that people seem to love are his vignette scenes at the top of each chapter. I had wanted to recreate that but the problem is that these require artistic talent as a writer. I did come up with something rather cool. I grabbed a couple of public domain books, one on devil worship in the 19th century and one on astrology. I then changed the odd word here, inserted my characters names for historical figures and such like and used these as extracts from fictitious books. I think they were quite cool but I think I need one at the top of every chapter so that the layout is consistent.

On the topic of chapters. I thought that it would be cool to have the chapter names and headings in Latin as there is a church conspiracy running through the game. This was a bad idea! Did you know that Chapter Six in Latin is Caput Sex? That is neither scary or cool.

So I have a choice now. I can confine Raising Azazel to the depths of OBS, never to be mentioned again or I can revise, edit, fix and improve the game. As I enjoyed the work I have done on it so far I rather fancy the second option.

So I am planning to try out Indiegogo. In the new year, I am stacked out right now with projects, I am going to launch a campaign and try and get some funding to do the bits I cannot do well done properly. It will also teach me something about how Indiegogo works and how to run a campaign.

If you are still reading this and you haven’t already seen the link to Raising Azazel on the Stargazer’s World MeWe group then could I ask you to have a look and give me some critical feedback in the comments? I can then evaluate it and build a todo list that will become part of the Indygogo campaign.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/03/raising-azazel-a-fudge-game/feed/015712https://stargazersworld.com/2018/12/03/raising-azazel-a-fudge-game/Strongholds, Towers, and Hideoutshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/JvTMX_TqypY/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/28/strongholds-towers-and-hideouts/#commentsWed, 28 Nov 2018 08:01:06 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15702Continue reading Strongholds, Towers, and Hideouts→]]>I am currently reading through the D&D Rules Cyclopedia from 1991 and I’m constantly discovering game aspects that the later editions lack or which have been severely limited in scope. One of these things is the idea of a travelling vs. a land-owning character.

In Basic D&D there was a concept known as “Name level”. When your character reaches level 9 you get a fancy title and you have to make a choice: do you want to own land and construct your own stronghold, tower or hideout, do you join a noble’s court or do you continue as a travelling character? Some classes have more options than others, but that’s basically the gist of it.

Personally I love that a lot. Strongholds, towers, and hideouts are not just a physical sign of a character’s achievements, it’s also a great plot device. A personal stronghold can be attacked, there might be conflicts with neighbors, or there are disputes for the lord of stronghold to settle. Players have to make important decisions which not only affect themselves, but also their staff, their subjects, the lands around their stronghold. It’s not just dungeon delving and monster killing anymore, but starting with level 9 politics get into the picture.

When the player characters want to go on a quest away from their personal holds, new questions arise which may be hooks for exciting adventures. Who will manage the daily affairs when the player characters’ are away? Will something happen while they are gone off on a quest? Perhaps one character is in the service of a noble who asks a favor from the party before they give permission for the character to leave. The adventures basically write themselves.

Even if you decide against being a land-owning character, the so-called BECMI edition of Basic D&D offers a couple of interesting options. Fighters can become Paladins or Avengers and swear fealty to a clerical order. Or they can become knights and pledge their allegiance to a noble. Magic-users may work at a noble’s court as adviser. A cleric may decide to become a Druid. Regardless of what option you choose it will tremendously affect how the campaign develops from this point on. Reaching “Name level” and settling down may also be the perfect end goal for a shorter campaign.

I don’t remember building one’s own stronghold being part of AD&D 2nd Edition (but I might be mistaken since I haven’t played it in a long time) and when Wizards of the Coast took over, it didn’t make a comeback either. Was it that unpopular with the majority of fans? Or are there other reasons why this feature of the game was faded out? If one of my honored readers knows more about this, please share in the comments below.

By the way, in 1993 Stormfront Studios developed a D&D computer game called Stronghold (not to be confused with the game series by Firefly Studios which started in 2001) which was basically a D&D-themed city builder. It might have out-dated graphics and a worse user interface, but it’s still quite enjoyable to play and it has a certain old-school charm. It’s available on GOG for about 5€ and thanks to DOSBOX it runs great on modern PCs.

What are your thoughts on strongholds, towers, and hideouts? Is this something you miss in newer editions of D&D or are you glad this aspect of the game had been thrown out? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/28/strongholds-towers-and-hideouts/feed/1015702https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/28/strongholds-towers-and-hideouts/No OSR for me!http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/4NiGr9oPQO4/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/25/no-osr-for-me/#commentsSun, 25 Nov 2018 13:14:00 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15683Continue reading No OSR for me!→]]>I have never really paid much attention to the OSR movement. Firstly, I didn’t really understand if it was Old School Revival or Old School Renaissance. Then I didn’t know what counted as old school. I mistakenly thought that it was a move back to the style of gaming that we all discovered in the 70s and early 80s. It then appeared that that isn’t the case and OSR is a just limited to D&D retro clones.

I think within 12 months of owning the D&D basic set, red box, I was writing house rules even if I didn’t know that the phrase ‘house rule’ meant or even existed. We were modding our games on a monthly basis. We absorbed every new spell, character class, monster, magic item and rule suggestion when ever we saw them. Initially there was loads of D&D material in White Dwarf magazine and that was easier to buy than Dragon magazine.

As soon as you saw how other people were modifying the game then we all started doing it. I can remember the first time my character got hold of a musket. I quickly went from D&D to Boothill to Traveller and then Runequest. Boothill was a brief liaison and I can put Gamma World in that group as well.

As soon as I discovered RuleQuest and Traveller with its on target combat system I had to have hit locations in D&D. Once you have hit locations then armour by the piece is a natural extension.

Once we had Gamma World we basically had D&D compatible high tech equipment. I think it was 1979 or maybe 1980 that I discovered Gamma World and I only ran one adventure and that had mutant chickens called Gallus Gallus513. That name has stuck in my memory ever since. One day I will manage to slot a mutant chicken into a game with that name.

It must have been 1981 that I discovered Rolemaster. This is back in the day or the rules being sold as drop in house rules for D&D and we could drop lots of our own house rules and use these awesome books instead.

Once I had all of rolemaster I house ruled that to make it a bit more like RuneQuest, which I think came out first, possibly 1979?

The point of that little jog down memory lane is that is RuneQuest old school? Is rolemaster old school? Rolemaster Classic is a basic rerelease of Rolemaster 2nd Edition and the 2nd edition was pretty much just a tidying up of those piecemeal D&D house rules. There is still a huge amount of Dungeons and Dragons DNA in Rolemaster Classic right down to magic users not wearing armour for absolutely no good reason at all and everyone taking Sleep as their most useful 1st level spell.

I suspect that if I published a Rolemaster adventure and stuck the OSR labels all over it there would be howls of protest.

Even given that OSR really means the resurrection of old D&D rules in infinite variety I don’t really understand the appeal. I understand that no one is forced to play OSR or D&D the reason we stopped playing it surely is because it really wasn’t very good.

Other games flourished and we had the proliferation of so many different games because those games could do what they did better.

I cannot even see it as a desire for simpler games. D&D was never simple. The DMG was basically 300 pages of exceptions to the basic mechanics. Rolemaster was labelled chartmaster because of the visual onslaught of and entire book of charts, Arms Law, but D&D had more charts and tables but scattered far and wide.

I am sure it is a case of if you ‘get’ the whole OSR thing then it makes perfect sense. What started me thinking about this today was that I was asked to do a review for an OSR game. As is my habit I looked up any other games that the publisher had produced and as this was an indie developer I ended up looking at his MeWe profile as well.

One of the things about OSR seems to be that it has attracted a lot of what I would consider unpleasant people, that is what the reaction to the logo was all about in Michael’s recent post. Well this game was written by one of those people. There was no way on earth I was even going to read the game based upon the personal posts by the author.

I have had some tense discussions with people on forums especially in rolemaster circles where I strive for ever greater simplicity in my play and they revel in the micromanaging of every detail. In the Rolemaster community we are discussing the idea of a competition to create spin off mini RPGs ‘powered by’ a core of the Rolemaster rules. I am all in favour of this sort of thing and bringing Rolemaster to genres and audiences it has never appealed to before. Those with opposing views are saying that you cannot go outside of fantasy or sci fi as any realistic simulation of wounds would mean that the PCs would die from infections if there were no magical or high tech healing. I don’t agree with them but I can understand their point of view, this would be a fun competition and not compulsory homework, their gaming table, their rules.

That is nothing like sort of argument I am seeing in even my brief encounter with the OSR, I cringe to use the word, community. I can now understand why the logo’s owner would not want it associated with some of these games. I honestly had no idea. It is obviously not D&D’s fault, nor the OSR concept that breeds hate speech and intolerance. I don’t really understand why it has coalesced around OSR. If OSR went away they would not all suddenly become liberal pluralists. They would hold the same views if they were playing any game or not gaming at all.

Where did all this come from?

I was doing a bit of digging and I came across this. It is from White Dwarf magazine issue 2, August 1977.

Look at the italic text. It looks like the dark side of role players had been there right from the start. I guess I was just too young at the time to see it. Maybe, the OSR community in moving back into old style D&D gaming has stepping into an area of gaming that has already been there quite happily for decades without drawing attention to itself.

I don’t know and I don’t really care. All I know is that any ideas I had of trying to suggest that Rolemaster was a perfectly valid OSR system is now firmly in the ‘bad idea’ pile. I won’t be doing that any time soon.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/25/no-osr-for-me/feed/1215683https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/25/no-osr-for-me/The Fantasy Networkhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/Y5z9KXb82gk/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/22/the-fantasy-network/#respondThu, 22 Nov 2018 13:22:53 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15678Continue reading The Fantasy Network→]]>Recently I have been contacted by Ron Newcomb. He let me know about The Fantasy Network, a new SVOD (subscription-video-on-demand) service focusing on fantasy movies and series. It’s a joint venture of Arrowstorm Entertainment (The CW’s The Outpost), The Forge Studios (The Rangers), and Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (JourneyQuest). In a way it’s a kind of Netflix for independent fantasy film makers.

The subscription costs $5.99 per month or $40 per year. With a subscription you get access to all the content, but there’s also free stuff on the site. I haven’t had time to give it a closer look, but since Zombie Orpheus Entertainment is on-board I am definitely excited.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/22/the-fantasy-network/feed/015678https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/22/the-fantasy-network/Blast from the Past: D&D Rules Cyclopedia from 1991http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/la89FdTBy0c/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/20/blast-from-the-past-dd-rules-cyclopedia-from-1991/#commentsTue, 20 Nov 2018 09:00:20 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15664Continue reading Blast from the Past: D&D Rules Cyclopedia from 1991→]]>Over the past few years, when I was looking more closely into old-school D&D, the OSR, the various retro-clones etc. numerous people recommended the Rules Cyclopedia to me. It’s basically a compilation of all the rules presented in the edition of Basic D&D which started off with the famous Red Box written by Frank Mentzer. Aside from all the rules it also contains a complete bestiary, and even a description of the world of Mystara aka the Known World. To my knowledge it’s the only D&D game which can be played as is, without having to buy additional books. It’s of course long out of print, but thanks to Print-On-Demand you can now get a print copy from DriveThruRPG.

Personally I have never played a Basic D&D game before. As far as I can remember the first edition of D&D I ever played was AD&D 2nd Edition. I didn’t like it at all. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed playing with my friends, I just wasn’t too fond of the the mechanics. Often I had the feeling I had to fight against the rules to play the character I wanted. Certain concepts seemed impossible. With more experience as a player and GM under my belt, I recognize that a lot of the rules were optional and sometimes mere guidelines, but back in the day, we slavishly clinged to the rules-as-written. But enough about my history with D&D, and back to the topic at hand.

After reading countless retro-clones on a search to find a perfect version of D&D (a search which is essentially futile), I decided to check out one of the actual old editions of D&D. The Rules Cyclopedia was an obvious choice because it included everything needed in a single book, and so many people had recommended it to me.

And I wasn’t disappointed. The 27-years-old book looks pretty good. It has a clear three-columned layout, nice black-and-white artwork, and the rules are presented in a clear manner. The RC was AFAIK first and foremost meant as a reference book, but it still does a good job of explaining how the rules work, even though no examples are given. Please note that I haven’t read all of the 306 pages yet, so some of the later sections may be a bit more obscure, but my first impression is positive.

What really surprised me is that the artwork throughout the book is much more inclusive and less sexist than I feared. The characters depicted are wearing proper armor, women are not depicted overly sexualized, there are various non-white characters in the artwork.

Since it’s a Basic D&D product some of the concepts in the game may sound strange to modern gamers. In Basic D&D Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling are actually classes. Humans can choose from a more extensive list of classes including the iconic Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User and Thief. Two optional classes are included: the monk-like Mystic and the Druid. I was also positively surprised that the Fighter class includes the variants of Paladin, Knight and Avenger.

Overall Basic D&D has less of everything. Less classes, less rules, less spells. Compared to AD&D and its successors (D&D 3rd Edition was based on AD&D 2nd Edition and not Basic D&D) it’s a much simpler game. It also retains a couple of concepts later editions of D&D lack. For example there’s the idea that the game should change focus at certain levels. You start out by delving into dungeons, at level 9 characters begin to erect towers, build fortresses, and recruit followers. Now it’s more about carving out your place in the world. Eventually the heroes grasp at immortality and basically godhood. This was supported by the Immortals boxed set which is not fully included in the Rules Cyclopedia, but I guess most campaigns never ran that long.

I am not sure if I would have preferred Basic D&D over AD&D back when I started playing roleplaying games. I guess the race as class thing might have killed any interest in it – among other things. Nowadays I don’t mind as much. It definitely makes things a lot easier, and it also helps to make non-humans different. In a world with such rules, there might be demi-human (where does this term come from anyway?) clerics, but they obviously don’t get spells by their gods the way human clerics do, or there are just no adventuring Elven clerics. Works for me. One positive aspect of this is that you don’t have to deal with adventuring groups in which not even one character is human.

Overall the rules and their presentation have a certain charm which is hard to elude. I can’t put my finger on it, but for some reason reading this book makes me want to play a Basic D&D game set into the Known World. For me it feels a bit like exploring a world which is totally new to me – which it actually is. For some of the old-school D&D grognards this might all be old news, but when I discovered tabletop roleplaying games Basic D&D was already a thing of the past.

Perhaps it’s a sign of a coming mid-life crisis but during the last years I have started looking back more often than before. I have been rewatching shows I loved as a teenager, I tried to reconnect with people I met during my university years, and I’ve started looking into games which were decades ago – even though I didn’t know about them at the time. The Rules Cyclopedia fits perfect into this fuzzy ‘80/’90s nostalgia-fueled romp and I can’t wait to get my hands onto my POD hardcopy which I ordered about a week ago. Sure, an original would have been better, but unfortunately the RC has become a much sought after collectors’ item. And even though it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, I am not going to put 70 to 120 Euros on the table for this book.

If you made it this far, you noticed that this isn’t really a review, nor do you learn that much about the Rules Cyclopedia itself. But you learned a bit about my reasons why I picked up the book in the first place and why you might do as well. For a game that old it holds up surprisingly well and it tells of different times and a different kind of D&D. Sometimes I wonder how D&D would look like today if Third Edition was based on this instead of AD&D 2nd Edition…

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/20/blast-from-the-past-dd-rules-cyclopedia-from-1991/feed/1115664https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/20/blast-from-the-past-dd-rules-cyclopedia-from-1991/Stargazer’s thoughts on the OSRhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/88hL_MG5fzA/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/20/stargazers-thoughts-on-the-osr/#commentsTue, 20 Nov 2018 08:09:39 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15670Continue reading Stargazer’s thoughts on the OSR→]]>What is the OSR? If you ask several gamers you’ll likely get different answers. The acronym usually stands for old-school revolution or old-school renaissance. For some people the OSR is celebrating games and gaming styles from the “good old days”. For others the OSR stands for everything which is wrong in the RPG community. The truth is – as always – much more complex.

It’s also not sure if the OSR is just about Dungeons & Dragons and its retro-clones, or about all games from the 1970s and 1980s. Can a game from the 1990s still be considered old-school? TSR’s D&D Rules Cyclopedia is from 1991 and most people would consider it quite old-school. What about Vampire – The Masquerade which was released in the same year?

I have to admit I don’t know who actually coined the term OSR. If I am not mistaken the OSR was started or at least became more well-known in the RPG community around the same time the RPG Bloggers Network got born. This was in 2008. But the idea is of course much older. Since the beginning of the hobby, people stuck to the game they first played and preferred it over the new-fangled stuff being released. For others it’s all about discovering the hobby’s past or celebrating the DIY nature of the early years of the hobby.

Back in the day the DM was supposed to be not just the person running the game, but also a game designer in their own right. Most DMs ran games in their homebrew world using house rules. No two games of D&D were alike. Part of the OSR has always been the idea to create your own stuff and share it with others. Eventually people noticed that there was a market for old-school gaming and the rest is – as they say – history.

Ok, what is the OSR now? A community within the RPG community? A gaming style? A group of game designers and publishers releasing D&D retro-clones? A hive of scum and villainy? Again, it’s not easily answered. The way I see it, the OSR is an idea. The idea is to preserve beloved games from a bygone era and create new material for those games. It’s also a group of people who adopted that idea. But it’s not a group lead by someone. You can state that you’re part of the OSR and then you are. No one can throw you out. There’s no secret handshake.

So why am I talking about all this? The OSR attracts many people and some of them are just not the nicest human beings to put it mildly. People associated with the OSR have been bullies, misogynists, transphobes, gatekeepers, and generally assholes. Some of them even go out of their way to offend people. As a reaction on a case of severe asshattery Stuart Robertson, who created a very popular logo for the OSR (see above), stated that you are not allowed to use that logo if it’s used to promote hate speech.

I applaud his decision. But of course not everyone was happy about that and accused Stuart of gatekeeping the community. This is of course bullshit. He’s merely using his rights to restrict the usage of something he created. But can he throw someone out of the OSR? Of course not. As I said before, there’s no membership card, no application form. If you state you’re OSR, you are OSR.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t stand up against some vicious hacks who try to take over the OSR. If we want it or not, the OSR is a community of people. Its members may not share much aside from their love of old-school gaming, but that doesn’t mean the OSR is defenseless against bullies. Since the OSR has no leaders and is no formal organization, everyone who feels part of the OSR should speak out against people trying to use the OSR for their nefarious means! The OSR can be welcoming to everyone, an idea fueled by nostalgia and love for gaming, or it can be a much darker place where everyone who is not a cis-gendered white man is not welcome. The latter is not a community I want to be part of.

]]>https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/20/stargazers-thoughts-on-the-osr/feed/1115670https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/20/stargazers-thoughts-on-the-osr/A Message From White Wolfhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StargazersWorld/~3/JjwXtMneylE/
https://stargazersworld.com/2018/11/19/a-message-from-white-wolf/#respondMon, 19 Nov 2018 09:23:44 +0000https://stargazersworld.com/?p=15649Continue reading A Message From White Wolf→]]>Three days ago the interim manager at White Wolf Publishing posted the following on their official website:

Hello everyone,

My name is Shams Jorjani, VP of Business Development at Paradox Interactive and interim manager at White Wolf Publishing. I wanted to inform you of some changes that will be implemented at White Wolf, starting immediately.

Sales and printing of the V5 Camarilla and Anarch books will be temporarily suspended. The section on Chechnya will be removed in both the print and PDF versions of the Camarilla book. We anticipate that this will require about three weeks. This means shipping will be delayed; if you have pre-ordered a copy of Camarilla or Anarchs, further information will follow via e-mail.

In practical terms, White Wolf will no longer function as a separate entity. The White Wolf team will be restructured and integrated directly into Paradox Interactive, and I will be temporarily managing things during this process. We are recruiting new leadership to guide White Wolf both creatively and commercially into the future, a process that has been ongoing since September.

Going forward, White Wolf will focus on brand management. This means White Wolf will develop the guiding principles for its vision of the World of Darkness, and give licensees the tools they need to create new, excellent products in this story world. White Wolf will no longer develop and publish these products internally. This has always been the intended goal for White Wolf as a company, and it is now time to enact it.

The World of Darkness has always been about horror, and horror is about exploring the darkest parts of our society, our culture, and ourselves. Horror should not be afraid to explore difficult or sensitive topics, but it should never do so without understanding who those topics are about and what it means to them. Real evil does exist in the world, and we can’t ever excuse its real perpetrators or cheapen the suffering of its real victims.

In the Chechnya chapter of the V5 Camarilla book, we lost sight of this. The result was a chapter that dealt with a real-world, ongoing tragedy in a crude and disrespectful way. We should have identified this either during the creative process or in editing. This did not happen, and for this we apologize.

We ask for your patience while we implement these changes. In the meantime, let’s keep talking. I’m available for any and all thoughts, comments and feedback, on shams.jorjani@paradoxinteractive.com.

This is huge. This effectively means that Paradox Interactive, the company who bought WW a while ago, is fed up with fixing the mess the people at White Wolf have been causing. Even before its release Vampire 5th Edition and other products released under the purview of the new White Wolf were surrounded by controversy.

Claims were made that the people running the show were trying to cater to Nazis, that they tried to be edgy for edginess’ sake and that they were openly discriminating against minorities. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the latest Camarilla sourcebook for V5 which trivialized terrible real world events in Chechnya.

Again and again the new White Wolf has shown to be at least extremely tone-deaf. There are sections in recent books which are misogynic, transphobic and homophobic, real life events are trivialized, people being murdered is basically turned into a bad joke. One could say that they are merely describing the World of Darkness, which is a dark place after all, but that’s IMHO just a cop-out.

Vampire and the other World of Darkness games have been quite revolutionary back in the 90s. In a time when roleplaying games were mostly dominated by D&D, it became a highly successful alternative which also opened gaming to a lot of groups who felt marginalized in the roleplaying community and in society. But now the same people who were attracted to WW games in the past felt let down by the company they supported for so long, and under attack by some of WW’s newfound fans from GamerGate and Alt-right communities.

Paradox’ decision to basically close down WW as a publishing and design company and to focus on licensing out the properties is probably for the best. Of course a lot depends on who these licensees will be, but I guess Onyx Path will be among them, and they have a much better track record when it comes to WW products than the new WW themselves.